Chapter XII: Juvenal (4)

680. Cp. the elaborate and long-winded poem of Statius on a statuette of Hercules (_Silv._ iv. 6) with Martial on the same subject, ix. 43 and 44.

681. Cp. viii. 3 and 56.

682. Bridge and Lake, Introd., _Select Epigrams of Martial_.

683. The ancient biographies of the poet all descend from the same source: their variations spring largely from questionable or absurd interpretations of passages in the satires themselves. The best of them, if not their actual source, is the life found at the end of the codex Pithoeanus, the best of the MSS. of Juvenal. It was in all probability written by the author of the scholia Pithoeana--to whom Valla, on the authority of a MS. now lost, gave the name of Probus--and dates from the fourth or fifth century.

684. L. 41. Cp. Plin. _Ep._ ii. 11.

685. xiii. 17 'sexaginta annos Fonteio consule natus'. xv. 27 'nuper consule Iunco'.

686. _Vita_ 1 (O. Jahn ed.): 1 a (Dürr, _Das Leben Juvenals_). A life contained in Cod. Barberin. viii. 18 (fifteenth century), says _Iunius Iuvenalis Aquinas Iunio Iuvenale patre, matre vero Septumuleia ex Aquinati municipio, Claudio Nerone et L. Antistio consulibus_ (55 A. D.) _natus est; sororem habuit Septumuleiam, quae Fuscino nupsit._ This may be mere invention on the part of a humanist of the fifteenth century. The life contains many improbabilities and the MS. is of suspiciously late date. But see Dürr, p. 28.

687. _Vitae_ 2 and 3 'oriundus temporis Neronis Claudii imperatoris'. _Vit._ 4 'decessit sub Antonino Pio'.

688. So Cod. Paris. 9345; Vossian. 18 and 64; Bodl. (Canon Lat. 41); Schol. Pith, ad _vit._ 1.

689. So all ancient biographies except 1. In _Sat._ iii, Umbricius, addressing Juvenal, speaks of _tuum Aquinum_: cp. also the inscription found near Aquinum and quoted later.

690. This is only conjecture, but the son of a rich citizen of Aquinum would naturally be sent to Rome for his education. For his rhetorical education cp. i. 15-17.

691. _Vita_ 1.

692. Cp. especially the whole of xvi; also i. 58, ii. 165, iii. 132, vii. 92, xiv. 193-7.

693. _C.I.L._ x. 5382.

694. _C.I.L._ vii, p. 85; Hübner, _Rhein. Mus._ xi (1857), p. 30; _Hermes_, xvi (1881), p. 566.

695. Satt. 3, 11, 12, 13. Trebius in 5 is perhaps an imaginary character.

696. vi. 75, 280, vii. 186.

697. vii, 82.

698. Mart. vii. 24, 91, xii. 18.

699. vi. 57.

700. xi. 65.

701. xi. 190, xii. 87.

702. _Vita_ 1.

703. There are, however, allusions to Domitian as dead in ii. 29-33, iv. 153.

704. Ap. Sid. ix. 269.

705. Joh. Mal. _Chron._ x, p. 341, _Chilm._

706. _Vita_ 7. Schol. ad vii. 92.

707. _Vita_ 6.

708. _Vitae_ 1, 2, 4, 7. Perhaps an inference from _Sat._ xv. 45.

709. See 708.

710. _Vitae_ 5 and 6. If the inscription (see p. 288) refers to the poet, this view has further support.

711. Joh. Mal., loc. cit.

712. Trajan had, however, a favourite in the _pantomimus_ Pylades. Dio. Cass. Ixviii. 10.

713. The simplest suggestion is that Juvenal was at some time banished, that the reason for his banishment was forgotten and supplied by conjecture. Cp. Friedländer's ed., p. 44. There is no real evidence to prove that Juvenal was ever in Egypt or Britain. His topography in _Sat._ xv is faulty, and allusion to the oysters of Richborough (_ostrea Rutupina_, iv. 141) would be possible even in a poet who had never visited Britain.

714. i. 1-3, 17, 18 (Dryden's translation).

715. i. 79.

716. Ib. 85.

717. Ib. 147-50.

718. i. 165-71.

719. x. 356-66 (Dryden's translation).

720. There is nothing in this satire to suggest that Juvenal had or had not visited Egypt. The legend of his banishment to Egypt may be true, but it is quite as likely that this satire caused the scholiast to localize his traditional exile in Egypt. The theme of cannibalism was sometimes dealt with by the rhetoricians. Cp. Quintilian, _Decl._ 12.

721. e.g. Claudius Etruscus, who held the imperial secretaryship of finance under Nero and Vespasian, and Abascantus, the secretary _ab epistulis_ to Domitian. Stat. _Silv._ iii. 3, v. 1.

722. For a fine picture of the exclusive Roman spirit, cp. _Le procurateur de Judée_, by Anatole France in _L'Étui de nacre_.

723. iii. 60-125.

724. xiv. 96 sqq.

725. i. 130 sqq, and the whole of xv. Above all, he hates the Egyptian Crispinus, cp. iv. 2.

726. i. 102 sqq.

727. For the tradition of coarseness see chapter on Martial, p. 263.

728. It has been pointed out that the epigrams of Martial addressed to Juvenal are disfigured by gross obscenities. It is, however, a little unfair to make Juvenal responsible for his friend's observations.

729. The sixth satire abounds throughout its great length with sketches of the most appalling clearness and power, though they tend to crudeness of colour and are few of them suitable for quotation.

730. xiii. 120 sqq.

731. x. 346 sqq.

732. xiii. 180.

733. ix. 32, xii. 63.

734. vii. 194 sqq., ix. 33.

735. xiii. 192-249.

736. xii. 3-6, 89 sqq.

737. Such obscurity as he presents is due almost entirely to the fact that we have lost the key to his topical allusions. He has a strong affection for ingenious periphrases (e.g. v. 139, vi. 159, x. 112, xii. 70), but they are as a rule effective and amusing.